Excellent TED Talk relevant to evolution. And a lot of other things...

Economist Tim Hartford talks about the importance of trial and error, and the shortcomings of thinking one has the answers. The story of the evolved spray nozzle, one I heard elsewhere five years ago and then lost track of, is a favorite of mine.

"It is very difficult to make good mistakes." Thank you for that video, PP.

I also loved the idea at 3:00 of the bearded Scottsman screaming at the German soldiers.

I was fortunate to work for a crazy farmer for many years who was obsessed with fruit and vegetable varieties. Quality of taste was everything - nothing else mattered. In the 70s, he once had a university professor come to his farm to find out who it could possibly be that was trying to patent 17 new varieties of black raspberries at once. In his later years, he was invited to the White House with many farmers being recognized for their work.

Your video reminds me of his style - never listened to the universities - always trial and error on his farm, his soil, his weather.

I was hoping I wasn't the only one that could appreciate what this guy was telling me. I thought the whole video insightful, and the stories he told during the talk illustrated his points very well. Thanks for appreciating it, schnoz.

This reminds me a lot of "Citizen Scientists" - releasing problems that have baffled science or are far too time-consuming or prohibitively expensive or for which the IT is too slow - to thousands and letting them have a go solving them by using tools that reflect the real behaviour of molecules.

You can have a go here: http://fold.it/portal/ design a molecule by trial and error. The learning curve is not steep but you need a day to grasp how to use all the tools.

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Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”